He stared at her for a few seconds.
By now there was sweat on her upper lip, too, tiny dots of moisture.
He took the knife away from her eye.
She was visibly relieved.
He surprised her. He slapped her face with his other hand, hit her so hard that her teeth clacked together and her eyes rolled back in her head.
'Bitch.'
There were a lot of tears now. She made soft, mewling sounds and shrank back from him.
'You must know where she is,' he said. 'She hired you.'
'We work for her regularly. She just called in and asked for a special clean-up. She didn't say where she was.'
'Was she at the house when you got there?'
'No.'
'Was anyone at the house when you got there?'
'No.'
'Then how'd you get in?'
'Huh?'
'Who gave you the key?'
'Oh. Oh, yeah,' she said, brightening a bit as she saw a way out. 'Her agent. A literary agent. We had to stop at his office first to get the key.'
'Where's that?'
'Beverly Hills. You should go talk to her agent if you want to know where she is. That's who you should see. He'll know where you can find her.'
'What's his name?'
She hesitated. 'A funny name. I saw it written down ... but I'm not sure I remember it exactly....'
He held the knife up to her eye again.
'Topelis,' she said.
'Spell it for me.'
She did. 'I don't know where Miss Thomas is. But that Mr. Topelis will know. He'll know for sure.'
He took the knife away from her eye.
She had been rigid. She sagged a bit.
He stared down at her. Something stirred in the back of his mind, a memory, then an awful realization.
'Your hair,' he said. 'You've got dark hair. And your eyes. They're so dark.'
'What's wrong?' she asked worriedly, suddenly sensing that she was not safe yet.
'You've got the same hair and eyes, the same complexion that she had,' Frye said.
'I don't understand, I don't know what's happening here. You're scaring me.'
'Did you think you could trick me?' He was grinning at her, pleased with himself for not being fooled by her clever ruse.
He knew. He knew.
'You figured I'd go off to see this Topelis,' Bruno said, and then you would have a chance to slip away.'
'Topelis knows where she is. He knows. I don't. I really don't know anything.'
'I know where she is now,' Bruno said.
'If you know, then you can just let me go.'
He laughed. 'You changed bodies, didn't you?'
She stared at him. 'What?'
'Somehow you got out of the Thomas woman and took control of this girl, didn't you?'
She wasn't crying any more. Her fear was burning so very brightly that it had seared away her tears.
The bitch.
The rotten bitch.
'Did you really think you could fool me?' he asked. He laughed again, delighted. 'After everything you've done to me, how could you think I wouldn't recognize you?'
Terror reverberated in her voice. 'I haven't done anything to you. You're not making sense. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God, my God. What do you want from me?'
